Zalando launch in the UK – £75 voucher up for grabs!

Please note this competition is now closed! Julie is our winning entry!

To celebrate the first year of Zalando in the UK, they have a £75 voucher up for grabs for one lucky London Cyclist reader. Read on for details on how to enter.

Zalando sell a selection of sports wear for men and women including kit for cyclists. To find all the cycling gear on offer, simply hover over Sports and choose all sports. Then, choose bike in the left sidebar.

Whilst the site specialises in sports shoes, they also sell other cycling gear such as gloves, helmets and great looking waterproof jackets. The last one being an essential item for this time of the year! The company offers free returns and have a free support line if there are any issues.

Competition

Entering the competition is easy. Simply add a comment in the section below with one tip you’d give a new cyclist who’s just started cycling in 2012. Anything that you’ve learnt from your experiences that you feel would be useful to someone else. We’ll pick our favourite answer and then contact the winner to send them the £75 voucher that can be spent on anything they want on Zalando.

Please note that this competition is only open to UK residents. It will run from today until 8 p.m. on Wednesday 18th of January 2012 at which point it will be closed to any further entries. The winner will be announced on this post. One entry per person.

If the winner doesn’t respond within a reasonable amount of time then the person in second place will be contacted.

For a free £5 voucher to spend on Zalando you can also sign up to their newsletter. This is located at the bottom of the Zalando website.

Good luck with your entry!

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To all new cyclists I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to be seen! Wear reflective clothing at night, make sure you have front and back lights, the more obscenely colourful and glowing you are, the more likely you will be a safe cyclist – a car driver will not see you from the corner of their eye if you are dressed in black or dark clothing at night with no lights, but they certainly will if you’re lit up like a Christmas tree. You have to be the person that is looking out for you – don’t expect the drivers to be doing the same. Plus think of all those fun colours you can wear!

Gear one is low. Try to always be in a gear that feels too low/ easy/ spinny/ soft.

Three rather than four. Four rather than five.

Pushing high/ hard/ slow gears puts unnecessary strain on your joints and on the transmission of your bike. Pushing hard on the pedals promotes muscle bulk so if you want muscley legs go ahead and push a high gear.

It feels counter-intuitive at first but spinning the pedals fast in a low gear promotes excellent cardiovascular health, reduces strain on your joints and on your bike, allows you to accelerate quicker and you get quicker gear changes. But the bottom line really is a bottom line, spinning gives you a well defined rear-end and lovely lean legs.

Hold a confident, consistent line in traffic. I got back on my bike to start cycling to work last year through Central London traffic, and that was the thing that made the biggest difference to me. My instinct had been to hug the curb, or dip back into spaces where there weren’t any parked cars, but holding a firm line a sensible distance out from the curb, and staying out if there’s anything less than a good long gap in parked cars, makes it much easier for other traffic to see you and to know what you’re going to do next.
Oh, and enjoy it! Even if it’s chilly or windy or drizzly, it’s still better than being stuck on public transport 🙂

Scope out your cycle route when it’s quiet, say on a Sunday afternoon. This way you’re not navigating around unfamiliar junctions in rush hour. And also don’t always look for the gap – I see so many cyclists who seem oblivious of danger because they’ve seen a gap they can cycle through. If you’re unsure just slow down and assess your options in exactly the same way as if you were driving.

Don’t be afraid to take up enough room on the road. If you don’t think it’s safe for a car to overtake you don’t tempt them by clinging to the curb. It’ll make you more confident and the vast, vast majority of drivers will be happy with it.

London road-users, including cyclists are a different breed from those outside the city; you need to prepare for encounters with all of them. Study the behaviour of bus drivers, lorry drivers, aggressive cyclists, impatient cabbies and oblivious pedestrians. This will help you to anticipate danger. Learn the etiquette of fellow cyclists and set a good example yourself. Be assertive and considerate.

My tip is to take a cycle training course, regardless of how good you already think you are! A lot of local councils will offer free training, so make the most of it! I took level 2 and 3 Bikeability (just a hour or two each) and learnt things I would never have thought of, including many of the tips people have already given here.

My advice would be – persist! It’s bloomin’ cold out today, your bum will hurt for the first week or so (mine hurt the week before last just after having not ridden for a few weeks over Christmas) and you will forget your towel/a change of pants/your shirt [delete as appropriate] a few times. I have worn a hot pink sports bra under a white blouse for a complete working day, so I feel your pain.

Soon the bum pain will be in the past, you will have a finely-tuned routine and will be thankful you persisted. You will get to work for free, get your exercise for free and in otherwise-reduntant time you would spend commuting anyway. Plus you will see and get to know so much more of the city by cycling.

Don’t feel you have to tackle long hills by standing up like you’re on the Tour de France. Sit back and select an easy gear and spin your way up. You’ll be amazed how much further you can go without feeling the fatique.

If you’re going to invest in some clothing for cycling (trousers, shorts, baselayers, jackets, whatever), make sure it’s actually cycling clothing! You might be tempted to just get some fitness clothes thinking that the cycling features don’t make up for the comparatively inflated cost of cycle-specific clothing, but they do. Don’t waste your money on guff from Sports Direct.

If your budget won’t stretch, at least go with clothes made for running.

Lots of tips on dealing with other motorists but my tip would be not to be put off by other cyclists. You’ll get passed by dozens of lithe things in lycra on expensive bikes that go up and down kerbs and through red lights. Go at your own pace and don’t copy other bikers behaviour if you’re not comfortable with it.

Watch the Silly Cyclists videos on youtube – don’t be put off, you’ll still get to see people trying hard to kill themself. Seriously though, Gaz does a great job showing what not to do which will help you pick up the things to watch out for and the places you just shouldn’t put yourself.

If you are in London try attending a Critical Mass ride (last Friday of every month meeting outside BFI in Waterloo at 6.30pm). It really helped me get confident very quickly on the roads, you will make a load of new friends and it’s great fun.

A vital tip I would give a new cyclist is to learn how to confidently look over both your shoulders whilst moving without swerving in either direction. It is vital to know what is around you at all times.

Lots of great tips. The one I would add is watch out for pedestrians. In London, most of them just step off the kerb without looking. Of those who do look, half of them are foreign so they look the wrong way! Pedestrians are, in my experience, what you’re most in danger of hitting, or falling off avoiding.

Observing the earlier advice about not cycling close to the kerb (whenever possible) will help, ’cause you’ll have more time/room to avoid them when they do try to throw themselves infront of you. And the advice about getting a loud bell and wearing gloves is also very wise.

Fitness for women is important as we are not as assertive. Explosive power to get ahead and get a good route from junctions and wearing the right breathable high vis gear to enable to do this! Lots of sprints and hills.

Watch out for parked cars opening doors on the road side, or pulling out without checking their blind spot or indicating. I’ve also found that on mini roundabouts cars will pull out in front of you on the left even though you have right of way (not sure why but it’s dangerous).

Don’t be in too much of a hurry. The slower you go the more time you have to anticipate danger. If you don’t know what the car in front is doing, count to ten and take stock. Chances are he will be about to cut you up, but won’t have signalled. Stopping and looking is always preferable to squeeezing past. Every time you avoid a potential hazard give yourself a metaphorical pat on the back. Besides, it’ll give you more time to enjoy the view and the fresh air – and to wave at the polite drivers.

Layers, layers, layers – Do a bit of research on HOW to wear clothes. That seems strange but even a slight change to the way you dress (especially in cold weather) can make all the difference. There are a lot of things which seem somewhat counter-intuitive at first (i.e. start your ride a little chilly.) but which become second nature after a while.

Being too cold or too hot can make a lovely ride horrible, with the right stuff and the right know-how a bike ride in even the most rubbish weather can be enjoyable!

Cycling on busy, pot-holed London streets, punctures are allegedly a fact of life for those on road bikes. Not so in my experience. Bench the slicks that come with the bike, and invest in good quality winter tyres. Then ensure you maintain their pressure – keep on the high end of the tyre’s recommened maximum. Use a good pump with gauge to ensure you don’t exceed the maximum pressure. In 2+ years – travelling 26 miles return 3-4 times a week – I’ve never had a puncture.

Keep it up! I have just stated commuting by tricycle for the New Year. First few day I could certainly “feel the burn” but it gets easier quickly. And don’t be relegated to the gutter: you have as much right to use the road as anyone else. Own the lane.

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